By Eyeopener Staff
RyeSAC’s ad-hoc committee looking into student council’s relationship with CKLN has taken a bold stance in its report to the RyeSAC board.
In an extreme circumstance, the committee recommended that if the radio station “has not or will not make reasonable progress towards achieving these recommendations,” that the board has the choice of terminating the “existing fees/lease agreement between RyeSAC and CKLN.”
The Eyeopener has a similar agreement with the student union over fees and lease arrangements. In an agreement signed in 1995 with the paper, the student union is authorized to collect fees from the university, then funnel it to the newspaper in instalments. The agreement also states that The Eyeopener has its offices with the consent of the student union and that the union has the primary right to occupancy.
Through a similar arrangement, CKLN gets an $8 levy per student per year and has its offices and studios in the basement of Jorgenson Hall.
The worst-case recommendation is one of 18 the committee came up with in response to RyeSAC’s board of directors’ rejection of the CKLN referendum at last month’s board meeting.
CKLN manager Conrad Collaco, who was contacted just before The Eyeopener went to press, would not comment in detail on the recommendation to terminate the fee and lease agreement.
“It’s a big statement that I couldn’t attempt to comment on without taking it into the context of these other recommendations. If I go through these and I find the other recommendations are reasonable, I would have no problem with this statement. It is a potentially contentious statement but I can’t say that without having considered the rest of the document.
I’m not comfortable providing comment on [the recommendations] until I have had a chance to really sit down and to consider them and read them fully,” Collaco said.
Other recommendations, which were presented to the RyeSAC board on Tuesday night for ratification, include:
– “CKLN entrench what its commitment and obligations are to Ryerson students and the Ryerson community”
– “CKLN needs to adhere to its bylaws and conduct elections, annual meetings and fulfill the obligations and process outlined therein”
– and “CKLN needs to recognize Ryerson as its home and promote itself as a proud member of the Ryerson community” by identifying the university in its call signals.
One theme consistent throughout the report was that the committee believed that CKLN should create Ryerson content that is “reflective of the Ryerson student experience and Ryerson student issues.”
The 10-page report cited several major concerns about CKLN. It detailed inaccuracies in its CRTC promise of performance and described violations of CKLN’s own bylaws. For instance, the radio station has not held regular board meetings and “does not appear to have a working board,” said the report.
RyeSAC also criticized CKLN’s finances, noting that the station does not produce regular financial statements and has broken the law by failing to conduct its yearly financial audit. The report states that despite CKLN’s desperate financial situation, it has turned down advertisers “based on purely political sentiments.”
The report also dwells on CKLN’s limited involvement with Ryerson, saying the station does not provide adequate coverage of campus events, groups, or sports. The only time CKLN mentions that it is a Ryerson radio station is twice a day, at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
The committee is made up of RyeSAC’s president David Steele, v.p. development and finance Vladimir Vasilko, general manager John Fabrizio and student groups director Maia Garriques.
These recommendations deal with CKLN’s recent request in asking students for a $6 hike a year in student funding to the station.
RyeSAC’s board of directors was to vote on the recommendations at last Tuesday’s board meeting. If they support the recommendations, CKLN will then have to review them and develop a proposal of their own.
CKLN hopes to hold a referendum sometime in the fall of this year.
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